BUSINESS DATA
COMMUNICATIONS &
NETWORKING
Chapter 6
Network Design
FitzGerald ● Dennis ● Durcikova
Prepared by Taylor M. Wells: College of Business Administration, California State University, Sacramento 6-1
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Outline
• Network architecture components
• Traditional network design
• Building-block network design
– Needs analysis
– Technology design
– Cost assessment
• Implications for management
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Network Architecture Components
•
•
•
•
•
Local area network (LAN) – Ch. 7
Building backbone network (or distribution layer) – Ch. 8
Campus backbone (or core layer) – Ch. 8
Data center – Ch. 7
Enterprise edge
– Wide area network (WAN) – Ch. 9
– Internet access – Ch. 10
– e-commerce edge – Ch. 7 & 11
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Network Architecture Components
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Traditional Network Design
• A structured systems analysis and design process
• Network analysis phase includes:
– Meeting with users to determine the needs and applications
– Estimating data traffic on each part of the network
• During the network design phase, the logical and physical networks
are designed and circuits and hardware selected
• Implementation phase is the building and implementing of the
network
Analysis Phase
Design Phase
Implementation
Phase
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Traditional Network Design
• Pros
– Useful for static and slowly evolving networks
• Cons
– Costly
– Time consuming
– This approach may not be adequate today due to:
• Rapid changes in technology
• Escalating network traffic demands
• Decrease in hardware costs and increase in staff costs
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Building Block Network Design
• Uses a few standard components to
simplify design and reduce costs
• Iterative design phases
– Needs analysis
Needs
Analysis
• Understand current and future network
needs (users and applications)
– Technology design
• Examine available technologies to
determine which meet or exceed needs
• If needs are difficult to estimate, build
higher capacity
– Cost assessment
Cost
Assessment
Technology
Design
• Evaluate financial costs of technology
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Needs Analysis
Needs
Analysis
• Why is the network needed?
– Performance issues may exist
– The organization may be standardizing
– Hardware may need replacement
• What users and applications must be supported?
• Goals differ depending on the network component
– LAN and BN typically are built with organizational ownership
and are often built with excess capacity
– WANs rely more on leased equipment and circuits are typically
designed at or near capacity with organizations leasing additional
circuits as required
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Needs Analysis
Needs
Analysis
• Baselines
– Create metrics of current operations to compare design
requirements against
– Baselines may include
• Sequence of operations
• Processing times
• Work volumes
• Existing costs
• Existing user/management needs
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Needs Analysis
Needs
Analysis
1. Break down the network into architectural components
– Evaluate all seven components
– Often easiest to start with WANs
– Geographic scope of network
2. Review the existing and expected applications that will
use the network
– Identify hardware and software requirements for these
applications
– Identify protocols used by applications
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Needs Analysis
Needs
Analysis
3. Identify and assess network users
– Some users may have very different needs
– How many of each type of user?
4. Categorize network requirements
– Mandatory
– Desirable
– Wish-list
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Needs Analysis
Needs
Analysis
• Deliverable: Logical network design
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
• Development of a physical network design (or set of
possible designs)
• Design includes clients, servers, circuits, and networking
devices (routers, gateways, access points, switches, etc.)
• What new hardware needs to be purchased?
• Can the existing equipment be upgraded?
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
1. Designing clients and servers
– Specify of the devices needed in standard units
– “Typical” users are allocated base-level clients
– “Advanced” users are allocated advanced clients
– Servers are similarly allocated based on application
needs
– Definitions of “typical” and “advanced” change as
hardware costs fall, and capabilities increase
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
2. Designing circuits
– Capacity planning is the estimation of circuit size
and type required for each network architecture
component
– Circuit loading is an assessment of the amount of
data transferred across a circuit (currently or in the
future)
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
• Estimating circuit traffic
– Average traffic vs. peak traffic
– Designing for peak traffic is ideal
• Estimating message volume
– Count messages sent in the current network and multiply by the
expected growth rate
• Precision may not be the major concern
– Obtaining precise estimates is difficult and expensive
– Standard circuit speeds “stair step”
– Traffic typically increases more than anticipated
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
• Should network designers plan for excess capacity?
– Upgrading costs 50-80% more than designing higher capacity
time
– Very few complaints about overcapacity
• Most organizations intentionally overbuild
• The turnpike effect occurs when traffic increases faster
than forecasts
– When networks are efficient and fast, users will use
them more frequently
– Most networks designed with excess capacity end up
using overcapacity within 3 years
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Technology Design
3.
Technology
Design
Network Design Tools
– Modeling
• Users create diagrams of existing or proposed networks
– Discovery
• Some tools can automatically create network diagrams
by examining existing network
– Simulation
• A mathematical technique used to model the behavior of
a network under real conditions
• Simulates applications and users generating traffic and
responding to messages
• May highlight potential problems
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Technology Design
Technology
Design
• Deliverable: One or more physical network designs
– Multiple designs may be created to highlight tradeoffs
between performance and cost
– Design of circuits and networking devices
– Designs for new/upgraded clients and servers
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Technology Design
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Technology
Design
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Cost Assessment
Cost
Assessment
• Financial analysis of the various technology design
alternatives
• Complex process that requires analysis of many factors:
– Circuit costs (cabling and installation)
– Internetworking devices (switches and routers)
– Hardware costs (clients, servers, power supplies)
– Software costs (operating systems, application
software and middleware)
– Network management and maintenance costs
– Operations costs to run the network
– WAN and Internet circuits
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Cost Assessment
Cost
Assessment
• Request for proposal (RFP)
– Detailed specification of equipment, software, and services
desired from vendors
– Typically used in large network purchases
– May include timeline and evaluation criteria for proposals
• Allows the organization to evaluate offerings from different
vendors
• Multi-vendor proposals
– May provide better performance
– May be less expensive
– May be more difficult to manage
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Cost Assessment
Cost
Assessment
• Selling the proposal to management
– Understand that networks, data centers, and most
information technology is viewed as a cost center
– Make a business case by focusing on organizational
needs and strategy
– The importance of network speed, reliability, and
security are easy for non-technical users to understand
– Avoid focusing on technical details and jargon
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Cost Assessment
Cost
Assessment
• Deliverables
– Finalized RFP that is sent to vendors
– Revised technology design with detailed specifications
including exact products and costs
– Business case for the network design
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Implications for Management
• Network design increasingly relies on standardized
technologies and a building-block design
• The cost of hardware, software, and circuits is less
expensive in the long-run than human resources to
manage network
– This may make more expensive hardware that is easier
to manage a better long-term financial decision
• Network usage continues to grow and designing networks
with extra capacity is less expensive than upgrading later
Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
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